When time was running out

now I can see my future.

“My biggest challenge was confronting my mind and my thinking about the past, and making certain that I would change my thinking and behavior in the future.”

But I had to face the past.

"Five years ago, I enjoyed a successful career and was married to my wonderful wife, Betsy. However, I had a serious sex addiction that manifested in online porn use and massage parlors. I had no prior experience with therapy..."

For the first time in my life.

I have found real intimacy.

“By facing that pain and dealing with it head on, I have been able to experience real intimacy and live as my authentic self.”

Living as my authentic self.

"Before working with Compulsion Solutions, my sexual addiction was out of control. I was acting out sexually on a daily basis, and I was not even aware of what I was doing or how it was affecting me..."

When time was running out, I found fulfillment and happiness.

“In my relationships with women, I’ve come to see them as friends and allies rather than conquests to be made.”

Intimacy and closeness with other people has always been a challenge for me. Friendship with other men has always been colored by my fear that I’m not masculine enough. I know this isn’t true, but nonetheless it’s a message that’s deeply ingrained in my psyche. In relation to women, I pursued sex, thinking that was the only way to intimacy and closeness. Another falsehood, yet another ingrained pattern.

When I first started with Neulia, I was in the grips of both of these lies. As I’ve gotten older, I began to feel that time was running out. I needed to figure out why my relationships didn’t last, and why they didn’t seem to bring the satisfaction I’d always hoped for. This led me to Neulia, and I began a long series of conversations with him. These conversations have greatly impacted my sense of self and where I fit in this world. It’s been a long journey, and I’m far from the end of it. Yet, I’ve learned so much. I’ve learned that my masculinity is something that I get to define; it’s not defined by my dad, or the culture that I grew up in. While these factors still influence me, I know they do not represent the truth. The truth is simply that my masculinity is unique to me.

In my relationships with women, I’ve come to see them as friends and allies rather than conquests to be made. I’ve become willing to be tender and vulnerable with them, and this has led to more fulfillment and happiness.

This is a lifetime journey, and although I’ve come far already, I look forward to a future where I find even greater courage to be who I am, to share myself, vulnerable though I may be, and to continue to grow closer to others.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I was understood.

“Neulia helped me manage my shame and embarrassment so that I could be free from the hell I was living in.”

I was 15 years old when my brother and his friends took me to a massage parlor for the first time. My brother put his leather jacket on me and sprayed me with cologne. It was my first time paying for sex, and I was forever changed. I had a cast on my hand from playing football, and the cologne that lingered on the cast was a constant reminder that I needed to get back to that place. I would drive the 30 minutes and pay the hundred dollars often as I could.

My brother also taught me how to cruise the streets and pick up prostitutes. You had to know what to say and where to keep your money. My brother introduced me high-priced call girls. From there, I began to go to porn shops. I then graduated to the adult movie theater.

The shame and guilt was a never-ending firestorm in my head. My way of avoiding the adult theatres was to call a phone sex line where I could have long conversations about the stories my mind had created. I would spend hours talking to the ladies on the phone about my fantasies of being dominated.

I felt bad because I was spending so much money on these calls, so I found something even better than a prostitute or call girl. I found Mistresses to humiliate me and force me to surrender my masculinity for the right price. One Mistress even made me go to a dressmaker to have a pink maid’s dress custom made for me.

When I discovered chat rooms online, I began to play the role of the female because I learned I could get much more attention by being an attractive girl who needed to be humiliated and forced to be a slave. I was able to impersonate a female voice on the phone and had an arsenal of pictures to “prove” who I was. I found some really twisted men who wanted to control and humiliate me.

I had chat rooms and my phony yahoo accounts running all day long at my office. My behaviors were completely out of control before I finally called George for help.

I will never forget the first time I spoke with George. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was understood. I could tell him my deepest secrets that I was going to take to the grave with me. George knew what was driving my behaviors. He helped me manage my shame and embarrassment so that I could be free from the hell I was living in.

I worked hard trying to understand that the only way I knew how to feel loved was if I were submitting to my mother and feeling her control and humiliation. Unfortunately, I had also married a woman just like my mother.

I called George in May of 2010, and today I am proud to say that I do not engage in any of these behaviors. I do not look at porn. I do not go to chat rooms. No Mistresses, prostitutes, call girls, massage parlors, adult bookstores, NOTHING! I’ve learned that these were all unhealthy coping strategies to ease the pain and suffering that I was living in. Unfortunately, my brother committed suicide when he was 30 years old and never had the opportunity to meet George. Yet now I’m at peace with myself. I am doing okay and I do not have to be emasculated in order to feel love. Love is not humiliation. Love is unconditional, and now I’m able to give this to my two beautiful daughters.

My business has flourished since I stopped spending my time in chat rooms. With that extra time, I became a yoga instructor and get great joy in teaching others how to access inner peace. I am working on building healthy relationships with women where there is true unconditional love and acceptance.

I am forever grateful to George for helping me see and understand what was true and what was fiction.

I had to face the past, but now I can see my future.

“My biggest challenge was confronting my mind and my thinking about the past, and making certain that I would change my thinking and behavior in the future.”

Five years ago, I enjoyed a successful career and was married to my wonderful wife, Betsy. However, I had a serious sex addiction that manifested in online porn use and massage parlors. I had no prior experience with any type of therapy, but I knew I needed help. My life and my marriage was in serious jeopardy.

I started doing research on the subject of sex addiction, and was thrilled to read George’s brilliant, plain speaking book, Breaking the Circle. I immediately called Compulsion Solutions in California and George answered the phone. I live in New York, and I asked George if there were any professional sex therapists that he could recommend in New York. He said, “I recommend that you come to Walnut Creek and work with me for 3-4 days.”

That was the best advice I ever received. I worked with George diligently for four days in California and learned things about myself and my family that I never knew or understood before. George taught me how to write dialogues that explored my early family life, and I quickly discovered that the normal middle class family that I thought I was raised in was far from normal. Among myself, my parents, and my siblings, we had zero intimacy. No kisses, no hugs, and zero words of affection. I never heard the words “I love you” growing up. This insight explained alot about my attitude, particularly toward women. This lack of intimacy translated into a perverse attitude toward women and my lack of understanding of true intimacy. My lack of intimacy translated into a full blown sex addiction that was out of control.

My discussions with George and the dialogue writing that he assigned provided me with the tools to combat my family history and aberrant sexual impulses. Perhaps the most important thing that I learned was the simple phrase: “You are not your mind”. One’s mind lives in the past and thrives on what one has thought and done in the past. My biggest challenge was confronting my mind and my thinking about the past, and making certain that I would change my thinking and behavior in the future.

It has been a long process, but a successful one. George has given me the tools to take control of my life. Not only has George’s work helped me overcome my sexual addictions, but also my alcoholism.

Most importantly, my work with George has changed my life and saved my marriage. There will always be work to do, but I have an intimate and caring relationship with Betsy that I never could have imagined.

I have found real intimacy, living as my authentic self

“By facing that pain and dealing with it head on, I have been able to experience real intimacy and live as my authentic self.”

Before working with Compulsion Solutions, my sexual addiction was out of control. I was acting out sexually on a daily basis, and I was not even aware of what I was doing or how it was affecting me. I also didn’t realize how my sexually compulsive behavior was affecting my friendships, my intimate relationships, or my career. I was underperforming in my job, often escaping into fantasies or obsessive thoughts throughout most work days.

Since beginning my work with Compulsion Solutions, I have been able to leave my unfulfilling day job to instead start my own successful business doing what I love. I have been able to date women and create healthier intimate relationships. And I have come out of the isolation that my addiction created. I am more social, and engage with my peers and friends regularly.

Compulsion Solutions helped me realize that my addiction was a way to avoid facing pain in my own life. By facing that pain and dealing with it head on, I have been able to experience real intimacy and live as my authentic self. Rather than hide in the shame, anger, fear or pain, I have been given tools to process and work through it so I can create the fulfilling life that I deserve.